


matutine

by loupettes



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Love Confessions, Post-Episode: s02e11 Fear Her, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:40:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28174791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loupettes/pseuds/loupettes
Summary: It felt as though the passing of time itself had decelerated; she was able to process clearly and preserve every detail of the moment: the way his lips parted in search of his words; the way his eyes lowered in his composure; the way the wind filtered through his hair and teased his collar, his Adams apple quivering gently above it. Perhaps, she thought, that this is what it was like to be told by a time lord that they loved you.Ten x Rose, a requested fic where the Doctor tells Rose he loves her before they are separated. Angst in its plenty.
Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 26
Kudos: 46





	matutine

“There you are,” she smiled, having finally located him. She’d asked him to wait outside while she nipped to the loo, but of course, that was too strenuous a task for the man and he had to go and wander off. It was in his nature. A life span extending thousands of years and he couldn’t wait the four minutes it took her to go to the toilet. 

He was leaning against the ledge of the bridge facing outwards over the river, less than a two-minute walk from the Olympic stadium. Small intimate gatherings of spectators dotted around them; the giddiness of the opening ceremony still infecting their laughter, their walks mindless and light. 

“What’re you doing all the way out here?” 

He grinned when he saw her, holding out his hand. “Come, look at this.” 

She gathered next to him, peering over the bridge to follow his gesture. A man sat on the river bank below, sketching the group of kids on the opposite bank. But the paints he was using were so vibrant, neon almost, visible to her even from up here. It was somewhat healing, watching a small gathering of people enjoying a fleeting moment and having it unknowingly and now timelessly captured in the most stunning of ways.

“That’s _beautiful,_ ” Rose admired, mouth agape as she watched the artist puppet the brushes into dancing effortlessly across the paper. “Not like your dodgy drawing of a torch earlier.”

“Oi!” he snapped, and Rose stifled a giggle at his genuine offence. “ _My_ drawing saved the world today, dodgy or otherwise.”

“S’that what you’re gonna go tell that bloke? _“Lovely drawing, but it’s not exactly gonna save the world, is it?””_

“Well I wouldn’t, don’t think it’s all that constructive. By all means be my guest, though.”

She pinched his arm and he winced, she was tickled to hear. He rubbed his arm in indignation, and she rolled her eyes. 

“Anyway,” she said. “Point is, I found you. Again. Starting to think I might have to get one of those baby straps parents have when they take their toddler shopping so they don’t lose them.”

“Nope, that would have been something only _your_ mum did.”

“First of all“- she whacked his arm - “second, come off it! _Everyone’s_ parents do it!”

He chuckled, a gentler one than she was used to, or at least she’d been used to tonight especially. She felt a stab of remorse when she remembered his earlier admission at being a parent. It was something she wanted to ask him about, but at the same time something she’d rather not. And by the looks of things, _he’d_ rather she not. She changed the subject quickly. “It’s such a nice night. Everyone’s so cheerful. Feelin’ quite proud to be British.”

“So you should!” He turned around, leaning his back against the bridge and resting his elbows on the ledge behind him. “The Queen jumped out of a helicopter today, it’s a good day to be British.”

She smiled and looked out onto the river. The cheering from the stadium could still be heard, enticing her, yet she didn’t want to move from this spot. She reminisced about the evening; all the laughter and cheering of a ceremony so celebratory of quintessential Britain that the sense of patriotism and camaraderie saturated the air around them. When she finally looked back up, she spotted out of the corner of her eye that he’d tilted his head back to look at her, a smile on his lips.

“What?”

“Nothing.” 

She shook her head, but he continued to watch her, his smile growing wider. 

_“What?”_

_“Nothing!”_

“Have I got bloody chocolate around my mouth again?”

His smile softened, his eyes were… she dared to describe as mesmerised. She shifted a little uncomfortably, except, when she looked back at him, she was struck by how captivated he looked by her. Her core warmed, a beautiful sensation spreading deliciously through to her fingers and toes, sending her head into a gentle and pleasant spin. 

“Walk with me.”

“Where to?”

He looked up at the sky, that smile still resting on his face. “Oh, I don’t know! Like you say, it’s a nice night. Let’s walk.”

She smiled and took the hand he’d offered her. The warm air sucked from Chloe’s street by the Isolus had restored and they found themselves back in a nice July night, the events of the day slipped away with it. It was hard, especially in peaceful times such as these, to remember the fear of having lost each other again. All was right.

They drifted, with her hand in his and his in hers, along quieter paths of Victoria Park. Neither talking, both lost in their own thoughts. Fireworks were sparking above them; every now and then they’d spot one, like heartbeats pulsing in the sky, but most of them were out of eyesight as the occasion was celebrated all across London. Rose watched passers-by and wondered about them: where they had come from, how they knew each other, where they might be going now. She considered whether people looked at her and the Doctor and wondered about _them._ She pictured the two of them, here now, walking slowly in the park hand in hand, soft smiles adorn their faces. She glanced up at him, but it must have been the stretching of her neck that roused a yawn from her.

“Tired?”

She chuckled. “It’s 3 o’clock in the morning, I helped save an alien race and a small child and _the world_ using only your terrible excuse of a doddle _and_ watched the nation’s cultural history reveal itself in the space of 2 hours. Yes, I’m tired.” 

“For the last time, I did the best I could whilst trapped in a _drawing_.”

“I’ve seen the way you write your own language. Indiscernible.”

“It sent the message across, did it not?” He nudged her with his elbow, breaking their hold. She pathetically mourned it. Even more so, when he put his hand in his pocket. She wrapped her arm around his in substitution.

She glanced up at the sky, the stars hidden to them as they most often were here in London. She thought about them, though, and how many she had seen already. How many more she could not wait to discover in the weird little madness that had become her life. Interesting, then, that she hadn’t the urge to discover them right now: for the second time that night, and all day really, she knew the only place she wanted to be right now was right here in whatever moment she found herself in. 

She could do without the storm thing, though. 

A shudder ran through her, one that she had been all too familiar with over the last few weeks. That darkness within, a peculliar anxiety that was igniting more and more each day, stirred by his vague and - quite frankly - sinister declaration of concern. He was never cryptic with her, unless he had reason to be. Unless he was protecting her from something. They knew, though, that was the thing. Time Lords sensed inconsistencies in the realm of time, and they knew when something _bad_ was about to happen, even if they didn't know what it was. She did, though. She knew that something bad was going to happen _to her_. 

“You have to admit,” she started, in the hopes of initiating some sort of clarity, “that the odds have been stacked against our favour as of late.”

He chuckled. “The odds went out the window when we started playing. We’ve just been winging it since ‘ _run_ ’.”

“Na, _you’ve_ been winging it. I’ve been fixing whatever the result ends up being.”

“You have shown yourself to be quite the companion, I’ll give you that.”

“Ta.”

He stopped abruptly, looking around at the grass beneath him. She glanced around curiously too, wondering what exactly it was he was looking for. They were a little off-path, further into the grass and edging closer to a gathering of trees. He shrugged off his coat, fanning it out on the floor and plonking himself down on it. “Could do with a lie down,” he defended. “Bit tired.”

She scoffed. “Want me to get you a blanket?”

“If you’ve got one to hand, yeah.”

She shook her head, smiling. He patted the space besides him and she obeyed, collapsing down in exhaustion to lie on her back next to him. He held out his hand above them and she slotted her fingers neatly in-between his, as it should be, as felt normal, as felt safe. 

She eventually broke the silence. “Doctor?”

“Mmm?”

A pause. She thought about whether she actually wanted to do this. The night had been so beautiful, the afterglow of intense manic energy from the day healing them both. They were both so content, so calm and in line with one another, existing alongside each other as though they were part of the same component, like space and time themselves were conditionally dependent.

“What did you mean earlier, when you said that a storm was coming?”

It was only because she knew him so well that she felt the ever-so-slight tensing of his fingers, his body stilling to her query. She regretted it; although she felt like they’d been more open with each other recently, he still had his moments where he was uncomfortable. That’s fine, she thought. He was trying, he was giving her as much as he could right now, so she could only be patient with him in return.

“Don’t say you think it’s gonna piss it down with rain cos neither of us has got a brolly.”

But he didn’t laugh. He might have done, had he not been so afraid himself. There it was again, that shiver. It seemed to trigger an automatic response to hold on to him, or maybe even feel him hold on to her. Which he was doing only tighter these days. She curled into him and he sighed, bringing her closer.

His hand rested atop his chest and she played with it, grazing the tops of her fingers across his veins, feeling the grooves of bones leading to his knuckles. His own fingers twitched beneath hers. 

“Don’t much listen to me.” He sniffed, his heartbeats steady. “And don’t say “ _I never do anyway_ ”.” 

“Hmm? Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

She heard his grunt beneath her ear and she giggled. He poked her cheek with his index finger, and she poked his chest in return. He responded by poking the dip of her waist and she yelped in reflex, taking her turn in going in for the tickle. It was a very rare occasion she would be quick enough to dodge his attempts to stop her. This was not one of those times. 

“Nice try,” he scoffed, his fingers locking around her wrists to still her. 

She all too easily retreated, falling back down to lie on his chest once more. “You’re lucky I’m too tired to complain.”

“Pah! Rose Tyler? _Too_ _tired_ to _complain_?”

“Not too tired to give you a slap, I’ll remind you.”

“Never too tired for that, no.”

She would have replied, except she’d just spotted his hand had curled around hers. She rarely saw him, nor felt him, take her hand: more often than not these days she just noticed whether they were or were not holding hands. She felt incapable of following much train of thought when she was so transfixed by it, the wealth of emotions and physiological feelings she felt that she had only ever heard about in stories. All of this, all of _him:_ the feel of his skin against hers, the sensations that ran through her body at his touch, was so impossibly overwhelming and yet so alluring that she only ever craved to be completely enveloped by it - by him. She closed her eyes to his hearts, reminding herself that he wasn’t _human._ That she never could be fully enveloped by him, no matter how much she wanted to be. And, allowing herself to daydream, especially in times like these where they were so close and she could so easily start trailing soft kisses up his neck, or slip her fingers through the opening of his shirt, or even just readjust herself to rest above him and more easily bring their lips together, only made it worse for her when she couldn't.

“You’re very quiet.”

Her hesitation was pained, apparently audibly so when he stopped his hand of its motions, now hovering over hers in his own uncertainty. She reassured him by twisting her hand upward, slowly starting to trace the creases of his palm. His fingers feathered against her skin and she felt so unbearably magnetised to him, she could feel herself moulding into him and she needed to pull back. But his other hand held her close to him and she felt trapped in a prison from which she did never want to be freed. She closed her eyes and continued to play with his hand; there was always something so endearing about knowing he let her. She thought back to the beginning of the time together, when she first started travelling with him. She remembered how he used to hug her in the heat of the moment with ease, but when it came to hugs for no reason he would visibly grow a little uncomfortable. With time, he grew to relax around her, sometimes even initiating the hugs. And now, as they lay so closely on the grass, the whole world to see his affections, she reconsidered how they must look to others now. Lying on the grass, so closely linked in a moment shared by only them.

"I love you.”

 _“What?”_ she choked, jerking upright to look at him. She didn’t have time - or even, the mental capacity - to think about how best to respond to such a declaration; those words coming from his lips she’d heard a thousand times in her mind, and she knew his voice so well that him saying it now sounded exactly the same as it did when she imagined it. But _hearing_ him say it, hearing the words rest in the air around and the emotion with which he delivered them was an unprecedented experience she could never have been able to prepare for. 

He hesitated, and she watched him with such intense precision as he pulled himself up too to face her. Her mind was running so fast that it was blank; all thoughts had merged into one and she felt overwhelmed. She couldn’t make sense of any of it, nor pick out a single one. She studied his face - was he pausing out of regret? No, he didn’t look regretful. He looked... calm. Not nervous, then, no. Carefully considering his next words, perhaps. It felt as though the passing of time itself had decelerated; she was able to process clearly and preserve every detail of the moment: the way his lips parted in search of his words; the way his eyes lowered in his composure; the way the wind filtered through his hair and teased his collar, his Adam's apple quivering gently above it. Perhaps, she thought, that this is what it was like to be told by a time lord that they loved you.

“I don’t want you to say anything back, I just want this to be yours for now,” he said quietly. “I know that you’ve been nervous, ever since… well, you know. And this doesn’t change anything. I loved you forty-five seconds ago and I love you still now. No difference.”

Her mouth was dry. All of the warmth and joy she always thought she’d feel if, by some wild stretch of illusion, he told her he loved her did not fill her, instead she was left completely numb besides the worry that her heart was frighteningly unrestrained and she seemed incapable of dominating its command.

He was watching her cautiously, not focusing on his words but rather the effect they were having on her. He swallowed, pausing now having seen how this had utterly blindsided her and he took her hand. All she could think about was how sweaty it must be and how he must be recoiling at the feel, but he held it gently. Not in a forceful attempt to calm her or draw attention to the fact that she must look like she was losing her mind; she felt nothing but reassurance, a comfort stemming from a man who truly did love _her_ with everything he had - twice over, perhaps, with those two hearts of his - and would always keep her own heart safe. His touch spread to it, reaching her core and soothing it, slowly and assuredly bringing it back to a rate she could bear.

“Hey,” he said after he felt sure she was calm, lowering his head to meet her gaze. “None of this… it doesn’t mean I’m worried, or that I think something's going to happen. It’s a promise to you that I’m going to make sure nothing will.”

She was _finally_ able to swallow, and as her mouth opened she caught a small sob. Her heart yearned for his and he moved quickly, reaching to cup her face in his hands before bringing her in close, wrapping his arms tightly around her as she hooked hers through his. She let his familiar scent infiltrate her, catching her anxieties and healing them, all cold and unwelcome feelings in her body being extinguished by him. Her sniffs were wet as she realised she had indeed started to cry and she felt him nuzzle her neck at the sound. They stayed that way for a while, she couldn’t be sure for how long, but she noticed a faint warm glow at the horizon beyond the trees signalling the dawn of the new day. It made her sad; she didn't want to leave his arms for anything. He only started to loosen his hold on her when it began to rain. 

**Author's Note:**

> requests always welcome @[loupettes](https://loupettes.tumblr.com/submit)


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